


Animals

by Catherine_Toast



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-11
Updated: 2014-04-11
Packaged: 2018-01-18 22:39:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1445440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catherine_Toast/pseuds/Catherine_Toast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There, in the woods, it was comfortable and easy to just be animals.  They weren't searching for anything anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Animals

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the strange dreamy syntax, it's not my normal writing style. It just came out the way it wanted to be told, fragments and run on sentences be damned.

There was something primal in the way Beth and Daryl had fucked out there in the forest. Something dirty, both literally and figuratively, in the movement of their bodies on the muddy ground. So many times Rick or Hershel, or one of the others had worried about what humanity was becoming since the walkers arrived. They didn't want people to turn in to animals, they'd said, more or less.

But there, in the woods, it was comfortable and easy to just be animals. To shit wherever they wanted, and eat whatever they could kill, and take off their clothes and fuck against a tree. They weren't searching for anything in particular anymore. Not people. Not a refuge. They didn't want them. Didn't need it. Despite the walkers that kept them vigilant day and night, and the biting cold, and the hard ground, and the worn, wet socks, somehow, someway, Beth and Daryl were something akin to happy.

Sometimes days passed without them speaking to one another. Not out of anger or indifference, but simply because it was unnecessary. She knew his emotions, his needs, his fears. The movement of his hand against her arm was all it took to alert her of danger, or to express his love for her. She knew when he needed some space, and he knew when she needed to be held tight against his chest and hear the rhythm of his heart.

They carried only knives with them, the crossbow long since out of arrows and abandoned by the side of the railway tracks. It was hardly needed anyway, much simpler to stab a lone walker, or climb a tree as a herd passed through. The dead seemed so much slower now; less dangerous. Or perhaps the couple themselves had gotten honed, more deadly. After half a year in the woods, their bodies were lean and muscular, fast and strong. It was effortless to run through the trees together, smiling, tracking possums and mud snakes. Beth had learned to catch a rabbit in a rope trap and snap its neck with her hands. It made Daryl's eyes shine with pride.

When they stumbled on evidence of people, (campsites, or distant voices,) they simply turned and went the other way. They didn't trust people anymore. Not for a long time now. Not since the funeral home, and the bad men who had stolen his Beth. Had hurt her. Daryl had fought tooth and nail to bring her back, to save her. Never again, he'd vowed. Never would he let another hurt his Beth, and he was constantly on watch for anyone, anything, that might harm her. Loving her was like living with his heart outside his body.

His memories of the day he found her were colored red with rage. He had kicked down the door of the house when he recognized the car parked outside and just started stabbing. Killing. As if those men were a herd of walkers, bent on devouring the flesh from his bones. 

But they were another kind of monster. 

Daryl had found her too late. Something in her eyes had died. Had changed. It was with a world weariness she walked with him through the woods in those first few hours. Him lurching like a walker, half dead from a bullet and countless stab wounds. Her, naked save for a blanket, trudging forward in bare feet and clinging to him for support, even as he sought the same from her. They thought of nothing that night except getting away. Getting as far away as they could from that horrible place . It was in the early hours they collapsed, exhausted, and she'd curled against his chest and wrapped the blanket around them both.

The next morning the full weight of their situation came barreling down upon them. All they had between them was the torn, blood-soaked clothes on his back, a crossbow with only two bolts, a hunting knife, and the blanket he had wrapped her in before carrying her away from the house. Their packs had been left at the funeral home long ago, she never said what happened to her clothing. He knew enough just seeing the trails of blood down her thighs, and the marks on her wrists where rope had rubbed the skin raw.

But still, he had found her, and they spent the next day with his back against a tree, she in his lap sobbing while he whispered comforts and apologies into the top of her soft yellow hair, staying still and quiet until they heard the sounds of walkers and had to keep moving.

He gave her his leather vest, and wrapped his flannel shirt around her waist, in a poor imitation of a skirt. His dirty undershirt was ripped apart and used to bandage wounds as best they could. He winced as she wadded up a piece and wiped at the blood between her legs. 

It seemed like a long time they were like that: him shirtless in jeans and boots, her in her makeshift outfit, wearing his dirty socks as her only protection against the rough ground, his crossbow their only weapon, save for his knife gripped too tightly in her small hand. 

Those early days weren't easy. They were both injured, weak. If he had ever imagined himself to be starving before in his life, he was wrong. They hadn't eaten in days, roaming lost in unfamiliar woods half clothed and bleeding. By some miracle he killed a fat raccoon with a bolt, despite a bicep that still bled freely from a bullet wound. With no way to make a fire, they ate it raw, with their bare hands, clawing off the flesh and tearing apart the carcass like walkers. Blood dripped from their hands and faces. They were more animal than human, then. 

Still, they weren't completely feral. As the days passed and they got their bearings, they'd slip into abandoned houses and stores if it seemed safe and find little comforts where they could. Sneakers that almost fit right, and soft silk panties. Strawberry shampoo and canned peaches. Kitchen knives and match books. But they never stayed long.

Daryl couldn't stand to be so closed in. He never could. But she felt it now too, ever since she had been taken, felt the way the roof blocked the moonlight, and the walls cut off escape routes. The more you made it safe, the more it trapped you in. Better to be outside, where you could run in any direction if you had to, where trees and animals warned you of approaching danger.

He was always secretly glad to be back in the woods, when the artificial scent faded from her hair, and she smelled like herself again: campfire smoke and grass and sunshine. Home.

It was in the woods they first made love. Daryl, trying not to hurt her, trying his best not to remind her of the bad men, was slow and gentle, kneeling down between her legs to taste her sweet sex, and watching her arch her back in the moonlight. When they joined he'd let her take the lead, let her be on top, in control, and she reveled in it, like she was finding something she had thought lost, blonde hair a wild mane, riding him until he couldn't take it anymore, until he exploded inside her and he knew he for the rest of his life he would want nothing more than to fuck Beth Greene in the Georgia woods. From then on it was easy, as natural as breathing, to become one with her again and again.

When he'd noticed her jeans were held up with an elastic band looped through the hole and around the button, he'd felt a flash of pride at feeding his mate so well, but then lying in the darkness some time later she'd taken his hand and placed it on her stomach and he'd felt the movement and he'd known. Weeks passed and soon it was beyond all doubt that she was with child. He watched the slope of her stomach curve out more each day, and he'd kiss it tenderly whenever his lips made the journey from her hot mouth to her wet sex below.

Then there came a day when she couldn't climb trees anymore. Couldn't run very fast, and they started to allow themselves to edge a little closer to civilization, or what was left of it. They didn't turn away from the sounds of people, but allowed themselves to watch, from a distance, to listen to the conversations of passing groups. To see them go in and out of houses, greeting each other. Still, they couldn't quite bring themselves to join, to make themselves known to these groups of strangers. How could they? Who could they trust? But he knew she shared his worries about the child growing in her. Some days it seemed like it would be fine, that they could birth the baby themselves and it would all be alright. And sometimes the panic crept up in his blood like a fever, helpless against the looming danger he had placed within her himself.

Her time was growing short when they'd stumbled across the old farm house with the odd group of people inside. Daryl hauled her up to a thick tree branch on the edge of the woods, and they'd sat there all day, watching. At first, there was only the faintest bit of recognition, at the lean man who so steadily held a rifle, and the square shouldered woman whose teeth gleamed white against the contrast of her dark skin. And then slowly, it dawned on them that they knew the people in this house, that the toddler playing happily in the wire fenced yard was a baby they had once known and held, and the young man who rolled the ball to her was her brother, grown strong and steady, with stubble on his cheeks.

“It's them,” Beth had gasped, squeezing Daryl's hand so tightly. But still Beth didn't move, and not until hours later, when Glenn and Maggie had appeared on the porch, did Beth's heart truly make the choice to go, to leave the woods and go back to her people. The light was failing by then, and Daryl helped her down from the tree they had sat so still in all day. The pair walked, hand in hand, across the small field to the big house looming in the distance. And when the people in the house took notice and began to raise alarm, Beth had shouted “Maggie!” And Maggie's face was one of perfect bewilderment, and then perfect shock, and then perfect, pure joy, as they came closer.

“Beth? BETH? BETH!!!” and her shouts drew the attention of the others. They all came running out of the house, and the dozen or so bodies looked to Daryl like a swarm of walkers and he had to fight his instinct to grab his mate and run back into the safety of the woods. Maggie and Beth were in each others' arms and the others were close behind, and still it was another beat before anyone recognized him, before Rick, barely a few feet away said “Daryl?” softly, and it felt strange to see his name on lips that weren't Beth's. Daryl nodded, not trusting his voice, and he wondered how they must look to these people. These people who slept in beds and bathed in tubs, combed their hair and shaved. They seemed another species entirely.

Still, they pulled him close, embraced him like one of their own. He found his arms wrapped around them too, igniting sparks in long dormant parts of his psyche. Yes, he had once cared about these people, trusted them. It would be okay.

As the days wore on, Daryl kept quiet, kept to himself. And there were so many rules here he couldn't understand. Not the wash your hands before dinner kind, but the ones that went unsaid, that were buried under layers of subtext. It took at long time before the truth came out that half the group was uncomfortable at knowing he'd disappeared into the woods with a 17 year old girl one day, and shown up on their doorstep a year later, his child growing inside her.

He didn't say what he wanted to say, which was that if they knew how wet her pussy was when they made love, and how tightly it clenched around his dick as she came, they wouldn't be asking this ridiculous questions about why and how and when did this happen, just that it did and it was right and perfect, and she was his and he was hers and that was the way of things. But he couldn't explain. He didn't know how to put into words all the things she made him feel, and how much he needed her, so he just stayed quiet, stayed out of the way. He volunteered to keep watch most nights, if only to get outside to the porch and the cool night air, the pistol an unfamiliar weight in his hand.

Beth found it easier to adapt to the lifestyle, and after a few days, she slept easily in the soft beds and her hair always smelled of fruity shampoo. But she had changed, fundamentally, more than he had, and there was always a distance between her and those who had once known her well, who expected her to be the old Beth. It was easier for her to be with Alana and Benny, and the others who had joined the group since the prison, and saw Beth only as the woman she was now. But she was awkward with Rick and Carl and Glenn, and Maggie still fretted and complained, and asked Beth why she was “so damn quiet all the time,” and then stormed off when Beth stared back at her silently.

Daryl himself wasn't sure how to be with her anymore. Days crept by in a domestic routines and unnatural silences the others felt necessary to fill with endless words that left his head dizzy and skin itchy under his too clean clothes. It was alright in the early morning light, when he came in from watch duty, and crawled in beside her on the double bed the others had reluctantly let them share and sometimes, despite her growing uncomfortableness in her own body, she'd roll onto her side or her knees, and let him enter her from behind, let him channel all his love for her into primitive rhythmic thrusts and hard kisses to her hair and the back of her neck. Yes, it was alright in those moments, when she wasn't around the others, absorbing their social graces, becoming more and more of a mystery to him.

It was Carol who had cornered him one night, made him stop pacing up and down the porch like a caged animal and talk. He had trusted her once, and although the lines around her eyes were deeper and held a hardness he was too scared to ask about, there was still an understanding between them. “They took her from me,” he admitted at last. “They took her. They raped her for days.” The pain was still raw in his voice. She'd muttered a curse under her breath. “She was so broken. Didn't trust no one no more. No one but me. And I was the same, ya know? So we kept it just the two of us. Made our own life together. It weren't much. But. . . we were. . .”

“Happy?” suggested Carol.

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess so. But then. . . we had to come back. I didn't want. . . I couldn't have her. . . like Lori.” And Carol nodded.

“Is the baby yours?” she asked bluntly. He didn't hesitate.

“Yeah. I think so. I mean, even if it's not, it is, y'know?” She knew.

Carol was the person who first touched his baby son, as he emerged from his mother's womb. Beth was the picture of motherhood, baby held contentedly at her breast, face wide with a proud smile. Daryl had kissed her forehead, told her how good she'd done, how proud he was of her.

And if loving Beth was like having his heart outside his body, then having a son was like slicing himself open and having all of his insides tumble out bare into the elements. Some vague hope he'd had in the back of his mind that the three of them would someday go back out, would go back to the woods to live under the open sky was forever dissipated. Their bodies grew soft, her skin faded back to its paleness of her youth, her hair it's former softness and color, always smelling of sweet shampoo.

It was best that way. This was where she belonged. Maybe she had needed the woods, for a time. Needed the trees and the hard ground to make her body strong, to heal herself from the wounds that had marred her spirit. But now she needed people.

She needed Carol's motherly reassurance and Maggie's love, and protective bodies encircling her and the fragile life that never strayed far from her breast. Many months it was like that, Daryl struggling to find his place in this new little community. Trying to figure out how to be a daddy when his own had only ever shown him what not to do. Watching Beth blossom and grow into something beautiful beyond his imagination, nearly untouchable in her womanhood. His breath would catch in his throat at the sway of her rounded hips as she walked past him, singing sweet songs to the child that was half his. 

It was on a warm spring day that he went hunting, and Beth had left the baby to the well trusted arms of her sister, now round with her own growing child, and come with him, into the depths of the trees. And perhaps it was the smell of the grass or warmth of the day, but they soon lost all pretense of hunting. The memories flooding back, and they found themselves bare, her legs splayed out on the soft spring earth, as he mounted her, thrusting into her, each others' names howled into the wilderness.

They came back from the hunt without prey, but having once again found each other. He found it wasn't so hard to go back into the light and warmth of the house when her touch still lingered on his skin. He watched her nurse his growing son, made easy conversation with his old friends in the firelight, and then curled up beside his love in a bed he no longer found too soft, reveling in her sweet scent of clean skin and breastmilk, with just the faintest trace of Georgia pine.


End file.
